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Think Twice with Jonathan Tobin
Hosted by JNS Podcasts · EN
The Internet and mainstream media are inundated with misinformation and superficial hot takes. That’s why you’re not getting the full story. Take another look with JNS Editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin as he takes deep dives into the most critical stories and controversies impacting the Jewish world with insightful commentary and fascinating interviews. If you want to understand the bigger picture and the context of the issues that really matter, this show is for you.
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Episodes
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Ep. 221: To resist antisemitism, today’s Jews must become refuseniks
6d ago00:56:33Tap to summarizeWhat can American Jews do to successfully respond to the surge of antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023? The answer, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, may be to channel the spirit of activism that characterized the movement to free Soviet Jewry in the 1970s and 80s. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by scholar and author Izabella Taborovsky, the author of Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide. Taborovsky points out that the script for those engaging in what she calls “conspiratorial anti-Zionism was written by Soviet propagandists more than a half century ago. She says the Soviet Union didn’t merely engage in state-sponsored antisemitism but also in a similar effort to promote anti-Zionism in order to suppress Jewish dissent at home and to attack the United States and Israel. What we’re facing today, she says, is, “the same language, the same ideas, the same conceptual universe and the same explanatory logic” employed by the Soviets against Jews then. The “refuseniks”—the Jews who wouldn’t go along with this assault on Jewish identity and demanded the right to emigrate—”refused this idea that in order to be accepted, we have to give up every aspect of our Jewish ideas and identity.” Moreover, she argues, they knew they weren’t accepted anyway by a society that was drenched in Jew-hatred. The lessons she draws from this struggle, can, she asserts, be applied to the Jewish dilemmas of today. The six principles laid out in her book are to: Reclaim your Zionism and its centrality in Jewish identity; Educate yourself rather than remain Jewishly illiterate; Find comrades in arms and embrace allies, which exist in America among pro-Israel Christians; Do the unexpected and refuse to play by the rules laid down by the antisemites; Reject victimhood and embrace pride in Jewish success; and to Lead with Jewish life as a pathway to success. Taborovsky also points out that efforts to bring up the history of the Jewish Socialist Bund as an alternative to Zionism is ahistorical. The Bund was just as nationalist as Zionism; it just wanted to practice it in Eastern Europe. To revive this doomed notion is to forget that it died in the ashes of the Holocaust and the Soviet gulags. To the contrary, she believes Jews should take heart from Israel’s successes and to realize that Zionism is the future of the Jewish people. It is those who reject it or wish to destroy it that are, as in the past, on the wrong side of history. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.
Transcribe →Ep. 220: American’s rageful Jacobins are the real threat to democracy
2w ago01:01:07Tap to summarizeThe problem for democracies throughout the ages has always been the rage and impatience of mobs with any limits on their power to act on their impulses. According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, such movements have become a major factor driving not just divisive politics and threats to liberty but also antisemitism. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by law professor, Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley, author of the new book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. Turley traces the history of this potent threat to freedom by discussing both the American and French revolutions and how they differed. His hero is Thomas Paine, the author of pamphlets and books that inspired both world events but who has been shunted to the side by many historians. The problem that undermines all attempts at government by consent of the governed is when crowds of people, inflamed by the passions of the moment, seek direct democracy without limits. As history teaches us, Turley explains, that usually leads to violence and the end of freedom. The one example where that was avoided was the American experiment because of the adoption of a Constitution that created checks and balances that spoke to the founders fears of mob rule. That didn’t happen in France and that’s why their revolution failed. Yet while the American system has worked well for 250 years, the threats to its survival are real. Chief among them, Turley says, are what he calls the new Jacobins, the politicians, professors and journalists who want to “reform” or trash the Constitution in order to allow them to enact radical change that is antithetical to freedom. The same factors, he says, are behind the current surge in antisemitism. Such rage is, Turley asserts, corruptive, addictive and contagious. Revolutions, like the mythical story of Saturn, eat their children. Antisemitism is one of those forms of rage. It has that sort of release for some people. It leads inevitably to violence such as the attacks on Jews as well as the murder of Charlie Kirk and the assassination attempts on President Donald Trump. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.
Transcribe →Ep. 219: Can Israel Beat the World’s Biggest Smear Campaign?
3w ago01:08:46Tap to summarizeIsrael has been put on trial every day throughout its history. But according to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, the case against it—including blood libels about it committing “genocide” or being an “apartheid state”—are nothing but myths and lies that can be systematically exposed and refuted by simple research and legal logic. He’s joined on this week’s episode of Think Twice by federal Judge Roy Altman, who has written a book that does exactly that. Altman, who serves on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida is the author of the new book Israel on Trial: Examining The History, the Evidence and the Law. In it he goes about the task of exploring each of six major accusations against the Jewish state: That Jews are colonists in the Land of Israel; That Israel’s founding was illegitimate or aberrational; That Israel has prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state; That Israel was occupying Gaza (and had turned Gaza into an open-air prison or a concentration camp) before October 7; That Israel is an apartheid or white-supremacist state; and that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. All are false. The judge says he was motivated to write the book not so much because of the atrocities committed on October 7, 2023 by Hamas and other Palestinians when they attacked southern Israel. Rather, it was because of the way American institutions turned their backs on Israel and the Jews in the wake of the massacre. But he believes that the truth about the accusations against Israel can help turn public opinion around. Altman estimates that about 10% of Americans believe the lies about Israel, while another 30% are patriotic and understand that Jews are an integral part of what has made America flourish, and therefore don’t believe the blood libels. The rest, he says, are persuadable if they are given the truth. His book treats the various false assertions against the Jewish state as legal charges that rise or fall based on objective evidence. Examining each through a judicial lens, he renders a final verdict and declares Israel innocent on all counts. Altman believes that at the heart of the case against Israel is the fact that anti-Zionism is indistinguishable from antisemitism, and the effort to delegitimize Israel and treat Palestinian Arab claims as credible is an inversion of the truth. Watch more Think Twice: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsksduy16U5Kb-ZQdW5aIj7xGhY1kk6i0 Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeartRadio, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel. Register for the JNS International Policy Summit here: https://jns-summit.org
Transcribe →Ep. 218: Why won’t Jewish stars speak up against antisemitism?
4w ago01:01:57Tap to summarizeIn the aftermath of the horror of Oct. 7, 2023, one of the most discouraging things for embattled American Jews was the relative silence from Hollywood. An industry that was never slow to speak up about all sorts of other causes and filled with Jewish artists seemed curiously unconcerned about the assault on Israel and the subsequent surge of antisemitism. As JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin says, American Jews were left to wonder why the arts community seemed just as likely to cheer for those attacking Israel as to declare their solidarity with Jewish hostages. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by actor, singer and director Jonah Platt who has dedicated his energies since Oct. 7 to advocating for Jewish solidarity and unity. Platt, the son of a successful film producer and philanthropist, hosts a podcast called “Being Jewish With Jonah Platt,” points out that most of those Jews who have remained silent were never engaged or committed Jewishly. Nevertheless, he says the failure of those who had often called upon the Jewish community to offer them solidarity on other issues but were then not willing to do so when the Jews needed help after Oct. 7 was noticed. Platt noted that there were people who in the second week of October couldn't put their names on a letter saying free the hostages because they couldn't get involved. “That, I'll never understand and to me that's pretty inexcusable,” he said. But, he adds, no one should be shocked when those Jewish artists who never opened their mouths on behalf of the Jewish people on a good day didn’t suddenly open their mouths on a really terrible day. Platt says that those who run the entertainment business are generally worried about politics becoming part of the conversation about their work. Nevertheless, he pointed out that there is no “blacklisting” of pro-Israel artists in Hollywood. Those who have spoken up for Israel like actress Ginnifer Goodwin, who appeared on Platt’s podcast, haven’t suffered in their careers. Nevertheless, the erasure of Jews from the movies is, he thinks, “an inherited ethos” from the 1930s when the Jewish founders of Hollywood were desperate to assimilate and to avoid the antisemitism of that era. Another problem is that even many of those artists who don’t hesitate to identify Jewishly define themselves largely by the ideas of social justice and solidarity with others rather than advocating for Jewish causes. In this way, they are uncomfortable about supporting Israel and Israeli victims without also expressing sympathy for Arabs who have suffered as a result of a war their side started. With respect to how Jewish families can deal with divisions caused by some family members who have taken sides against Israel, Platt says the most important thing is to preserve relationships with loved ones while being honest about those differences. In this he speaks with experience because his brother, actor Ben Platt has spoken up on behalf of the Palestinians and against Israel. As for how the community as a whole should deal with those who oppose Israel’s existence, he takes a very different view. He believes there should be room for questions and debate and criticisms of Israel’s government, especially for young people and others who are not fully educated about the issues. But we shouldn’t have to debate about whether we ought to be connected with Israel. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.
Transcribe →Ep. 217: Communism’s comeback and the surge of antisemitism
Apr 3001:07:30Tap to summarizeWhy are so many young Americans saying they support communism and do they understand that the anti-Zionist lies they are swallowing were cooked up by Soviet propagandists a half-century ago? Those are the questions JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin is asking about the willingness of ignorant Americans who are embracing the Marxist war on the West. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by scholar Jonathan Brent, the CEO of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and a historian of communism and the Holocaust. According to Brent, the reason for the revival of Marxism is, “the hatred of the American system of government and of the West generally that has been inculcated in generation after generation of young people who have gone to our most liberal and our most privileged universities and progressive schools.” This has, he says, created an appetite for a belief in the power of the state to “smash” bourgeois values, liberalism and institute more equality. But Brent points out that all this failed ideology has to offer is “an equality that is actually based on deprivation and enslavement rather than on lifting people up.” The renewed infatuation with Marxism and the overlooking of its role in the murder of more than 100 million people during the 20th century is, Brent argues, also directly related to the support for Hamas, anti-Zionism and the war against Israel among young people. It also explains the support that an anti-Zionist like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani gets from many young people. Alongside of this trend is a renewed interest in the Jewish Labor Bund, the socialist Jewish movement that thrived in Europe before the Holocaust. Brent believes it is wrong for contemporary anti-Zionists to use it to attack the existence of the state of Israel. “The back in the 1930s was not between Bundism and Israel,” Brent points out. It was a debate about, “Do we stay here or do we go there? Where do we have the best chance of survival? And by that I don't mean simply physical survival, but the survival of our traditions, the survival of our language, the survival of our customs, our literature, our music, and so on. That was the issue. Bundism, in the classical sense, was never against Israel as such. So, it's a bit dishonest to take that principled intellectual dispute of the 1930s and transport it into the present day.” Brent also discussed the work of YIVO, which seeks to preserve the record of the Eastern European Jewish civilization that perished in the Holocaust and the Soviet gulags. While the Bundists shouldn’t be blamed for believing that Europe could be a place where Jewish life could continue to flourish, the verdict of history vindicated the belief of the Zionists that it was doomed there. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.
Transcribe →Ep. 216: The seven deadly myths about the Iran war
Apr 2300:47:35Tap to summarizeThe trouble with most reporting and commentary about the war the United States and Israel have waged against Iran is obvious, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. Liberal Journalists and members of the foreign policy establishment are so deranged by their hatred of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they’d rather the Iranian Islamist terror regime win a war than see those two leaders get credit for doing the right thing. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Michael Doran, the senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute. Doran believes there are seven myths about the conflict that need to be debunked if Americans are to understand what’s happening in the Middle East. The first is that it is a “war of choice.” It is not, he argues. The only other option was for the U.S. and Israel to wait for the Iranians to construct a sufficiently strong force of missiles with which they could defend their nuclear program at which point it would have been too late to do anything about it. The second is that President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal would have prevented the threat if Trump hadn’t withdrawn from it. The truth is the opposite. The accord guaranteed that Iran would get a bomb rather than preventing it. The third is that President Joe Biden had left Trump a peaceful world. That is also false because Biden’s weakness and appeasement efforts empowered Iran and left the Middle East in flames. Another myth was that Iran was ready to compromise with Trump. As with their dealings with Obama and Biden, Tehran’s idea of compromise was the United States tolerating Iran’s terrorism, missiles and nuclear ambitions. Doran also points out that the idea that stopping Iran is a distraction from the need to contain and confront China is wrong. Conceding victory to Iran will immeasurably strengthen its Chinese ally. The most damaging myths are the ideas that Israel dragged the United States into war and that Trump and Netanyahu are megalomaniacal warmongers. The claims about the Jewish state deceiving Trump into war are more about the antisemitism of anti-Zionists and other Israel-bashers and completely divorced from the truth. The main purpose of the war is to defend American national interests. Nor are the claims about the two leaders true. They waited until all other avenues for ending the Iranian threat were tried before ordering the strikes on Iranian targets. Doran also deprecates those who analogize the war to past historical incidents like the 1956 Suez crisis. The United States is, unlike Britain and France in 1956, not a declining power that can be muscled by powerful allies into abandoning their interests. While the outcome of the war and negotiations to end it are unclear, Doran points out that the notion that the U.S. and Israel are doomed to defeat simply isn’t true. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.
Transcribe →Ep. 215: Don’t be deceived: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism
Apr 1600:53:29Tap to summarizeThe problem facing Jews today, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, is that blood libels about Israel aren’t just being mainstreamed as they are becoming unchallenged tropes of popular culture. He’s joined in the week’s episode of Think Twice by scholar and educator Naya Lekht who argues that it’s a mistake to think that the current surge of antisemitism dates back only to the aftermath of the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Lekht argues that to understand what’s happened, we need to realize that current events were catalyzed by the UN’s 2001 Durban Conference, the September 11, 2001 terror attacks and the Second Intifada. These events helped introduce into the West an ideological assault on Zionism and Jewish rights for which the organized Jewish community was completely unprepared. What’s more, she says, there is no major Jewish legacy organization that's running a campaign devoted to opposing anti-Zionism. The anti-Zionist propaganda which is aimed at attacking an essential element of Jewish identity that has been normalized in academia and throughout Western society is not new. It is, she points out, a vestige of Soviet disinformation and propaganda. Lecht, who emigrated from the former Soviet Union as a child, says that Jews living under Soviet rule were immune to this propaganda because they understood instinctively that what they were hearing from the Communist government’s media was always untrue. By contrast, Americans are vulnerable to such appeals. That’s especially the case when they come packaged as part of fashionable ideologies about race that have been adopted by liberal cultural and media institutions as a new orthodoxy. In this manner, such toxic ideas are accepted even when they are specifically crafted to target Jews. She teaches that Jew hatred can be understood as part of a “three-era framework,” consisting of three distinct eras, anti-Judaism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism that are all part of a demonization project. The mistake that many Jews and supporters of Israel make is to try and debate the truth of blood libels about Israel such as the claim that it is committing “genocide” or defend the Jewish state’s right to exist. As much as it is important that such blatant lies be refuted, Lekht says what is needed is an effort to stop playing defense and isolate the Jew-haters spreading propaganda. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Transcribe →Ep. 214: A handbook on how to fight back against the antisemites
Mar 2701:09:46Tap to summarizeJews around the world are reeling from the unprecedented surge of antisemitism that followed the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. They may feel helpless when confronted by the way the Jew-haters have mainstreamed tropes of antisemitism in order to demonize Israel and its supporters. But, says JNS editor-in-chief, the answer to this problem is not to give up. Jews don’t merely need to wake up and fight back but to do so effectively and win. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by JNS columnist Melanie Phillips, who has written a handbook for doing just that, titled, Fighting the Hate: A Handbook for Jews Under Siege. According to Phillips, many Jews have responded to the post-Oct. 7 tsunami of hate with shock and confusion. She says that Jews have an absolute duty to stand up against lies, against injustice, and to tell the truth. “It seemed to me that there was much that could be done if people had the right ideas about how best to go about this, " said Phillips. “And I thought, and I still think, that the organized Jewish world in the diaspora didn't really have a strategy.” Instead of playing defense, Phillips believes the Jewish world has to get off the back foot onto the front foot and go on the offensive. Yet too many are ignorant about the conflict with the Palestinians and the way leftist ideologues are spreading Hamas propaganda. Part of the problem is what she calls, “liberals with moral vertigo.” Phillips says some Jews were so stunned on October 7th by the people that they had thought were being oppressed by the Israelis, but had turned into barbaric, psychopathic, slaughterers for which there was absolutely no reasonable excuse and they can't process it. Yet she believes that the pro-Israel and sane Jewish community can make some headway with them. But, she says, the first thing is you have to park your anger and reach out to those who used to rationalize Palestinian behavior and try to reach them with the truth and the facts. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.
Transcribe →Ep. 213: Debunking Iran war conspiracy theories
Mar 1901:00:14Tap to summarizeAt the heart of much of the opposition to the war the United States and Israel are waging to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and spreading Islamist tyranny with terror is a conspiracy theory. Both left-wingers and some on the right still believe in myths about Israel or the Jews manipulating American foreign policy, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by historian and Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead who points out that surges of antisemitism in the United States, such as the one we’re currently experiencing, is a function of other factors which impact national discourse like economics and mass migration. Mead also says that while antisemitism on the right is highly visible because of celebrity podcasters like Tucker Carlson, the overwhelming majority of Republicans still support Israel and the war in Iran. He argues that changes in attitudes toward Israel and increasing antisemitism are far deeper and more widely spread on the left right now. While he doesn’t minimize the impact that antisemitic advocacy from podcasters can have on our national discourse, Mead says it's important to remember that not everyone in the country is immersed in online conspiracy theories and listen to extremists on the internet more for entertainment than for news. American policy toward Iran is, as is the case with all foreign policy decisions, being decided by what the president of the day considers to be in U.S. interests, and not because of what Israel says or wants. As for the outcome of the current war, he admits there’s no way of knowing the outcome for sure. But he believes that the most likely result right now is one which may leave the current Islamist regime in place but with their ability to inflict harm on their neighbors or the world vastly reduced. That may oblige the U.S. and Israel to have to attack it again in the future, invoking the “mowing the grass” metaphor. That’s in keeping with Mead’s belief that Trump’s foreign policy remains essentially “Jacksonian” in that he isn’t much interested in spreading American values and ideology abroad but is determined to defend the country’s interests aggressively. Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.
Transcribe →Ep. 212: Why people still love dead Jews
Mar 1201:06:20Tap to summarizeJews shouldn’t have to choose between fighting antisemitism and bolstering Jewish identity. According to JNS editor-in-chief, the assertion of New York Times columnist Bret Stephens that the Jewish community should stop doing the former and concentrate on the latter is a false choice. They need, he says, to continue to do both, though, admittedly the critique of Jew-hatred is often badly executed. He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Dara Horn, author of the highly influential 2021 book, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present and the recently published Passover-themed graphic novel One Little Goat. Horn is the founder and president of The Tell Institute, which is devoted to educating the public about Jewish civilization. She says the lessons of her previous book still apply in the post-Oct. 7 era. She argues that “people tell stories about dead Jews that make them feel good about themselves” and “living Jews have to erase themselves in order for those stories to be told.” But after Oct. 7, it’s clear that it's actually simpler than that. “The message of people who love dead Jews, which unfortunately has only been confirmed in the past two years, is that non-Jewish societies generally only find Jews acceptable when Jews have no power.” Ultimately, she says, the point of venerating dead Jews while delegitimizing live ones, like those in Israel, “is the goal of working toward a final solution of eliminating Jewish civilization.” Her graphic novel is aimed primarily at children but is sophisticated enough to have a lot for adults too. It presents a surrealist seder in which a lost afikomen prolongs the evening for six months and prompts a journey through Jewish history for its protagonist while being led by a talking goat. In the course of the story, the essential lesson of Passover that every Jew understands that they were personally liberated from Egypt is brought to life.
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